Weekend America Voices
Desiree Cooper
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Desiree Cooper admits that she's never changed jobs without also changing careers, a habit that has led to varied life experiences.
Based in St. Paul, Minn., she comes to "Weekend America" via Detroit, where she's been an award-winning columnist for the Detroit Free Press for nearly a decade. Her poignant stories about the lives of ordinary Detroiters have made her a readers' favorite and garnered her two Pulitzer nominations.
Before becoming a columnist, Desiree had been a frequent commentator for National Public Radio's "All Things Considered," an attorney, a community organizer, an instructor on multicultural leadership at Wayne State University, and an editor of alternative newsweekly, the Metro Times. Her short stories and memoirs have been collected in "Children of the Dream: Our Stories of Growing up Black in America," (Atria 2000) "Detroit Noir," (Akashic Books 2007) and "Other People's Skin" (Atria 2007). She also serves on the national board of Cave Canem, an organization that supports emerging black poets.
Desiree credits her eclectic interests to her childhood as an Air Force brat. Born in Japan, she's lived all over the United States, from Colorado to Virginia.
"I learned early that we all speak the same language," she said. "Except Japanese. I'm not good at that. Or French. But I read body language pretty well."
Desiree studied journalism and economics at the University of Maryland, where she graduated magna cum laude in 1981. She graduated from the University of Virginia Law School in 1984, and married her law school sweetheart three months later. The couple raised their two children in Detroit.
"I believe in the transformative power of stories. Poet Gwendolyn Brooks once said, 'One wants a teller in a time like this.' I'm so glad that Weekend America is here to tell them."
Recent Stories
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A Joyful Noise
Reggie Prim spent his childhood being raised with the Black Hebrews in Israel. As a kid, he sang with the music group the Tonistics - a religious soul group modeled after the Jackson 5. The Tonistics' songs from the early 1970s have just been re-released. Reggie isn't exactly nostalgic for his childhood in Israel. But the re-release of the music from Dimona has brought back memories about his extraordinary journey from Israel back to the United States.
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Saving Memories
This weekend, New Orleans native Edwin Harrison is relieved. He was only a month away from moving back into his home destroyed by Katrina when Hurricane Gustav bore down on the Gulf Coast. This time, his house was spared. It wasn't easy to leave everything he'd rebuilt and flee to Atlanta to wait out the storm. But there was one thing Mr. Harrison didn't have to worry about this time. Earlier this summer, he entrusted one of his prized possessions to a stranger.
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Barbies Forever
The iconic Barbie doll is having a great summer. Last week, Barbie won a court battle against her modern competitor, the Bratz dolls. And last month, Mattel issued an Alpha Kappa Alpha Barbie in honor of the nation's oldest black sorority. This weekend, we do what millions of girls do every weekend worldwide -- play with our old Barbies.
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Myths About Blacks
This week, Radio One, Inc. published a major survey of the African-American community. Researchers polled more than 3000 people about their attitudes toward everything from religion to health insurance. Turns out blacks are evenly divided over what they want to be called--black or African American. But that's not the only surprising finding.
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Getting Race Right
From immigration to Sen. Barack Obama to Middle Eastern prejudices, race is a hot topic in the news. Journalists are meeting this weekend at the Unity convention in Chicago to discuss how race and ethnicity is covered by the media. Weekend America's Desiree Cooper is at the event, and she speaks with two seasoned journalists about the difficulties of accurately reporting on racial diversity.
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Remembering the Projects
Most of the old Chicago public housing projects have been demolished, but some former residents are now embracing the friends and memories they made over the years, and the sometimes very trying years, they lived there. A few residents are helping to launch the Public Housing Museum, which is meant to be a national repository of public housing memories and learning.
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The Modern Brady Bunch
"Individualism is great but at the same time, it consumes a tremendous amount of resources. We all understand the value of having our own car, but when gas is costing $4.50-$4.60 per gallon and likely to go up, people have an incentive to rethink some of these ideas."
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Three Decades of Bakke's Mixed Legacy
Thirty years ago today, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of U.C. Regents v. Bakke that public institutions can't put quotas on minority student enrollment. But the ruling wasn't clear-cut about the role of affirmative action. Desiree Cooper talks with University of Houston professor Cathy Horn about the ruling's impact.
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Drive, Daddy, Drive
Many people in the United States have fond memories of summer road-trip vacations, and our Desiree Cooper is no different. But the specter of racism colors some of her most treasured family memories.
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Those Summer Song 'Ear Worms'
It's summer, and that means that elusive summer song is about to make its way into your brain and take up residence. Do you remember songs from your past summers? And why can't you get them out of your head? Psychologist and author Dan Levitin explains how those "ear worm" songs actually stay on your mind, even if you don't want them to...
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An Honest Talk About Race
For about a month now, Chicago Tribune columnist Dawn Turner Trice has hosted an online forum on race, where she encourages Web visitors to be honest. Some of those comments have been at times upsetting, controversial and touching. Trice discussed her feelings about the experience so far with Desiree Cooper.
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The Power of Breaking Bread
The Democratic Party is hotly divided, and a fundraising dinner tonight will bring the topic to a boil. Lynne Rossetto Kasper, host of American Public Media's Splendid Table, talks about the power of breaking bread with your rivals, and how it can lead to deeper understanding and even amicable compromise.
